Recently, Guangzhou (China) Consumer Council released the “Guangzhou New Energy Vehicle Consumption Survey Report” The contents of the “Report” survey mainly focus on five aspects of car purchase behavior, use status, vehicle evaluation, construction of charging facilities and policy evaluation of new energy vehicles. A total of 2,247 questionnaires were completed by intercepting interviews and online questionnaires, of which 319 were new energy vehicle owners, accounting for 14.2%.

According to the “Report”, the surveyed car owners believe that the current new energy vehicles are generally cost-effective, and the overall cost-effectiveness rating for new energy vehicles is 3.37 (out of 5). Among them, Tesla ranked first, 3.73 points, higher than other brands; BAIC second, 3.40 points; BYD, Dongfeng (DFMC) Motor, Geely Automobile were 3.39 points, 3.33 points and 3.31 points respectively

Among the factors affecting consumers’ purchase of New Energy Vehicles, the lack of driving range is considered to be the biggest shortcoming of new energy vehicles. According to the survey data, the current range of new energy vehicles is concentrated in the range of 200km-400km, only very few above 400km. In the consumer score, the driving range rating was the lowest, at 3.38 points, indicating that consumers are less satisfied with the new energy vehicles’ driving range. Among other indicators, the charging speed was 3.41 points, the battery durability was 3.47 points, and the battery safety was 3.65 minutes.

According to different purchase time, nearly 70% of the owners said that the car has different degrees of mileage attenuation. Among them, vehicles with attenuation within 10% accounted for 38.9%, 10%-20% accounted for 19.7%; 6.3% attenuation was 20%-40%, 1.6% attenuation was over 40%, and 33.5% of owners said there was no attenuation.

Summary:

From the report above, there are actually many problems with Chinese domestic made EVs. At the same time, it also clearly reflects the huge demand for high-quality/performance EVs in the Chinese market. Looking forward to the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory to be complete as soon as possible, which will bring high-quality EVs to more Chinese consumers.

In the past few weeks, many of my friends and followers have asked me when Tesla Model 3 started to produce in China, how’s the demand will there be? How many units can Tesla Model 3 sell in China in one year?

Firstly, we can take a look from the luxury four-door sales data of the United States in the past few months.

When Tesla is ready to produce Model 3 in China, not only can save most of the import tariffs and transportation costs, also Chinese customers even possible to receive the government’s subsidy. The conservative estimate is priced at $32,000-$60000 USD. The annual demand will be in between 200,000 and 250,000 units per year(China market only).

In China

From China National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategy Advisory Committee: With the large-scale popularization of new energy vehicles in the fields of family cars, commercial vehicles and buses, taxis, and logistics vehicles, the annual sales volume of new energy vehicles in China will reach more than 5% of the total automobile market demand in 2020. In 2025, it will increase to about 20%. Under the national carbon emission target and the primary energy substitution catalogue, the annual sales volume of new energy vehicles will continue to increase significantly in 2030, with a scale of more than 10 million vehicles.

In 2017, the total sales volume of China’s new energy vehicles reached 777,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 53%. It has been ranked as the world’s largest producer of new energy vehicles for three consecutive years.

(picture from Bloomberg)

“The pricing of many EVs in China are close to Tesla Model 3, and about 300k RMB ($44,000 USD). Once Tesla starts mass production(in China), it will have a direct impact on domestic car companies.” Jia Xinguang, executive director of China Automobile Dealers Association said.

Tesla GigaFactory Shanghai & Chinese Government

July 2018, China Shanghai government with Elon Musk and Tesla team signed a pure electric vehicle project investment agreement. Target to produce 500,000 Tesla EVs a year in China.

(Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong and Elon Musk)

During the same month, Shanghai Municipal Party Committee Secretary Li Qiang met Elon Musk, expressed his congrats on the official signing of Tesla China Gigafactory. Also looking forward for further expand all-round cooperation to promote mutual benefit.

July 12th,2018 Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan met Elon Musk & Tesla team. Had a wonderful meeting with senior Chinese leaders and had a very insightful communication on the long-term development of the future.
Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5p3uiq3_tI&app=desktop

Also, Beijing Mayor Chen Jining met with Elon Musk on July 13th,2018, expressed his hope that the two sides will strengthen cooperation in the fields of EV tech & urban green development also will fully support Tesla’s development in Beijing. Tesla also announced will gradually expand the scale of Beijing R&D center.

August 2018, an official video from China Shanghai government mentioned Shanghai government will fully assist Tesla to build Gigafactory in China Shanghai Lingang and put it into production as soon as possible.
video: https://v.qq.com/x/page/j0754tsjcjd.html

November 16-25th 2018, Tesla (China) is exhibiting Model S X 3 at the 16th China Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition. From the China Tesla Club and Chinese Auto reporter (Sun Shao Jun), the booth that has the most customers in Guangzhou car show GIAE this year is Tesla, which has been extremely busy from the beginning of the day to the end, everyday. Many customers are placing orders at the show.

At the same time, the Tesla salesman who at the show also said that there were too many customers to order Tesla in the past few days, and the demand has soared.

Over the past few weeks speculation has been rampant regarding the “rumored” Tesla facility in Lathrop California.

Initially thought to be a distribution center more and more people now believe that it could be an assembly plant. I myself think that is the likely scenario.

As Tesla challenged preconceived manufacturing notions and “best practices”, they are figuring new ways to optimize and automate the different processes.

A Very important key piece of infomation about $TSLA future in manufacturing today during the Earnings Call. They said the key to the GA line in the Tent structure was that it eliminated a lot of steps. Being able to back up Trailer loads of parts directly to the line. pic.twitter.com/Usl8S9luJk

Another interesting concept around manufacturing would be the use of mobile and modular assembly lines.

Imagine lines that can be installed in any location (warehouses or tents) in the matter of days while a permanent structure was being built in parallel.

Plug & Play assembly lines!

Since Tesla seems to be building plug and play assembly lines it doesn't necessarily need to actually own the building they sit on. These plug & play (drop & play?) Assembly line can be installed and removed very quickly as opposed to traditional manufacturing lines.$TSLAhttps://t.co/VDclo550n3

If the parallel option is chosen, then you can simply move the temporary line to a new location (tent?) and repeat the process.

Imagine the possible scenarios for Tesla regarding their current needs:

North America – with the Semi, Model Y, Roadster, Utility van and Pickup.

In China – fast-tracking production start

Europe and other sites…

Also, since it’s modular you can continuously upgrade part of the assembly line by just swapping these modules out as soon as you make improvements and optimizations or when you more the line to another site.

Whatever ends up being in that new building in Lathrop will have kept us speculating and entertained with all the drone videos